Menu
Sign In Search Podcasts Libraries Charts People & Topics Add Podcast API Blog Pricing
Podcast Image

NPR News Now

NPR News: 02-21-2026 7AM EST

21 Feb 2026

Transcription

Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

What winter storm impacts are expected in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast?

0.976 - 21.212 Windsor Johnston

Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Windsor Johnston. Forecasters say a powerful winter storm is making its way toward the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast. Mark Chouinard, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service, says strong winds could combine with heavy snowfall to create dangerous travel conditions along the coast.

0

21.277 - 36.771 Mark Chouinard

With wind gusts as high as 50 to 70 miles an hour in spots, especially from like portions of Long Island into southern New England, kind of combine that wind with the heavy snow that's falling and you're going to have really low visibility. We're looking at blizzard conditions along the coastal areas.

0

37.171 - 60.718 Windsor Johnston

Emergency officials from Washington, D.C. to Boston are preparing for the possibility of more than a foot of snow in some areas. The storm is expected to develop overnight, with snow picking up through the day on Sunday into Monday morning. Officials are also warning of power outages in some regions. More than 30 states have implemented some type of cell phone ban in public schools.

0

61.239 - 68.61 Windsor Johnston

NPR's Sequoia Carrillo visited one school in Kentucky to see how the policy is working after its first semester.

0

68.991 - 87.236 Sequoia Carrillo

The Academy at Shawnee is a magnet school in West Louisville where Principal Holly Smith says the teachers love the ban. But the students? I think they absolutely hate it. Their phone is their lives. It's their world. Students have to lock their phones in a yonder pouch, a locked bag that they carry with them and unlock as they exit after school.

87.857 - 93.365 Sequoia Carrillo

NPR spoke with junior Joseph Jolly and senior Kwane Lanier to get their side of things.

93.645 - 98.331 Holly Smith

People know they're going to get in trouble if they keep it out. They've started to actually focus on work.

98.311 - 114.632 Sequoia Carrillo

I don't think that's true. But by at least one measure, the ban is helping students unplug. According to the school's librarian, they're reading more. Checkouts from the first semester were triple what they were in the last year. Sequoia Carrillo, NPR News, Louisville.

115.523 - 132.709 Windsor Johnston

South Carolina is reporting nearly 1,000 cases of measles in what officials are calling an unprecedented outbreak. But as NPR's Maria Godoy reports, officials say the rise in new cases has slowed in the biggest outbreak the U.S. has seen in decades.

Comments

There are no comments yet.

Please log in to write the first comment.